Identity Cards Bill

I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, stopped me from speaking so that he could speak, because I should like to back up what he has said with every fibre of my being. This is a general catch-all phrase. There used to be a phrase in the Army which went, ““conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline””, which meant that you would give someone 10 days’ CB for whatever slight misdemeanour you thought they had committed. The more one hears of this Bill, the more tyrannical it seems. Everyone has been immensely polite about the Minister, and justifiably so, but I draw her attention to that wonderful line in the Aeneid, when, seeing the Trojan Horse, he says:"““Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis””—" or,"““I fear the Greeks, especially when they are bearing gifts””." When we are all being polite to the Minister—justifiably—she should be warned. That does not stop me from being as rude as I possibly can about this aspect of the Bill. The more you see, the more it grabs, and the more it has to be put down. The Minister will not be in office when finally there is a build-up of people who are fed up of filling form after form every three days and are fed up of being stopped by the Plod and asked for their identity card, which they have left behind at home, and so on. She will not be there to accept the blame for it—nor will the present Home Secretary—but someone eventually will have to untangle the ghastly mess that we are in the process of happily legislating.